


Tattooine

by foxfireflamequeen, kidslipstream



Series: Sailboat in the Moonlight [2]
Category: DCU, DCU (Animated), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 04:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3556445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxfireflamequeen/pseuds/foxfireflamequeen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kidslipstream/pseuds/kidslipstream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wally gets a tramp stamp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part of an ongoing RP with ninjawing and kidslipstream. References to previous events have been minimized, and it requires no in-depth knowledge of the RP backstory other than they are 17 and 19, and Wally is in his freshman year at Stanford.
> 
> If you're interested, the order of events is as follows: [Little Bird](http://archiveofourown.org/works/949371), Tattoine.
> 
> Today, 3/16 is the anniversary of the RP I started with ninjawing (yeah, we started at like 1am the day Wally died. Woo.) SO, to commemorate it, I’m finally updating the easy-to-read fic versions of our RP.
> 
>  _Please excuse the ridiculous meta!_ This thread actually lead into some major plot developments later on, though, so check it out. :)

Wally’s phone beeped at him: a question on his “Kid Flash” blog. He and Dick had started matching Stumblrs as a prank during a lazy spring break under the non de plumes of kidslipstream and ninjawing. The blogs has since gained some notoriety as part of the online superhero “role playing” community. They were hardly alone; dozens and dozens of superhero blogs littered the internet--most of them run by kids having fun pretending to be Superman or Batman or Black Canary or Green Lantern. Blogs about the team were fairly rare, since the members of the Team operated under relative secrecy and anonymity.

But Kid Flash and Robin were no secret, and Dick and Wally realized they could infiltrate Stumblr covertly as a wild in-joke. And if anyone asked, Dick assured him, they’d just say they were doing reconnaissance. You know, monitoring online chatter about the Team and the League. You never know when you might uncover some dastardly plot festering in the dark corners of the World’s Finest forums.

Wally swiped to the Stumblr app on his phone.

> _**ANONYMOUS** : If you could get a tattoo what would you get?_

Or they could, you know, answer questions like these with total candor.

Honestly, Wally didn’t have a lot of time to do much “reconnaissance,” and between Stanford and the occasional mission, this blog had lain fallow after the first couple of weeks of the prank. His inbox was clogged with questions that he just didn’t have time to answer or questions that may have inadvertently given too much away about his ID. But today, Wally’d just finished a major project and needed--no, _deserved_ \--a break. And this was too hilarious to pass up. So he plopped down on a bench on the Stanford Quad before answering, shoes scuffing back and forth on the beige sandstone, while he frowned thoughtfully.

> **_kidslipstream_** :
> 
> _Hmm, you know, I’ve never given it a lot of thought, anon, because my metabolism would just dissolve and heal it immediately? But IDK … a pink butterfly on my ankle, probably._
> 
> _Haha, just kidding._
> 
> _A tramp stamp made from lighting bolts._

Wally snickered.So much for candor.

Before he pocketed his Samsung Galaxy, his phone beeped again. Notes already? _Huh_ . But it wasn’t just any note: _Dick_ had already replied. Wally grinned to himself. Stalker.

> _**ninjawing** :_
> 
> _So basically like your uncles costume, right above your ass. Okay._

Pft, _he of little vision_. Wally googled images of “tattoo” and tapped reply.

> _**kidslipstream** :_
> 
> _Aw a guy like me deserves something prettier than ~just that~. It needs like, ~curliecueeees~_
> 
> _ _

Dick played along in seconds.

> _**ninjawing** :_
> 
> _Oh, babe. A guy like you deserves the prettiest, of course._
> 
> _ _

Wally shouldered his bag and headed back to his dorm to avoid looking like an idiot laughing to himself in the middle of the quad.

> _**kidslipstream** :_
> 
> _Oh no, lighting bolts with lots of ~birdies~ everywhere. Now I kind of want to do it for real. It’s not like it wouldn’t be gone in a week._
> 
> _Would you hold my ~hand~ if I do?? *bats eyelashes*_
> 
> _**ninjawing** :_
> 
> _*snickers* I wouldn’t let go. I’ll even kiss it better after, if you want._

A bicyclist narrowly missed crashing into him as Wally ground to a halt in front of the fountain outside Old Union. It was so weird. He and Dick had only begun dating about a month ago, and they had barely told anyone else in real life. But _online…_

Well. Their relationship had just leaked out, naturally. Not an official announcement or anything, of course, but in a sort of sarcastic affection, and … Wally wasn’t sure how he felt about it-- _no, that’s not true_.

 _He loved it_.

And so did, apparently, his followers. In fact, he’d gained more in the last month than he had in the previous six. He’d actually expected some blowback from it, given the state of the world, but far from it. Every scrap of endearment was blown out of proportion, or rather, it would have been if it weren’t totally true. It was a little strange.

At any rate, it’s not like it would give them away--quite the contrary, probably. Who’d believe that the _real_ Kid Flash and the _real_ Robin would be--?

Wally sighed. He’d been caught in pictures with Artemis a few times, and even though their relationship had ended almost a year ago, there’d never been anything in public to indicate that, so probably most of the world assumed the status quo.

 _How wrong they were_.

So maybe it was the rush of feeling that overwhelmed Wally with Dick’s casual affection, or the fact he hadn’t seen him in a couple of weeks, or maybe just that he really, _seriously_ deserved a break that Wally backed out of Stumblr and opened Dick’s number and texted this:

> _**KF** : … Let’s do it. Where are you at?_

Dick probably wasn’t taking any longer to reply than he had before, but the seconds slowed down as the adrenaline of Wally’s spur of the moment decision flooded his sensitive cells, and he texted again:

> _**KF** : Let’s do this before I change my mind. We can sketch it out when you get here._

A few more agonizingly slow seconds crawled by.

> _**Rob** : I… you’re serious? I’m at the library, but dude, you sure? I mean, I know it’ll fade in like a week… Come pick me up. *laughs* I’ll totally hold your hand._

Wally grinned.

> _**KF** : Okay, cool. You’re at school, right? Look, while I’m on my way, look up a good tattoo parlor in Gotham or somewhere and we’ll go - they should still be open at that hour, right? What is it, like seven over there?_

Wally sprinted toward his dorm to ditch his books and change.

> _**KF** : And … design. Crazier the better. Man this may be one time I wish I could get drunk._
> 
> _See you in like 30? 40?_

Three-thousand miles away, Dick tapped at his phone. “Gotham library,” he corrected. “Thirty, make it fast.”

Collecting his books, Dick stood to put them back, and returned to tuck his laptop into his backpack and pull out a notebook and a pen. …Art wasn’t really his forte.

“Robins,” he grinned to himself as he started doodling. If Wally was going to get a temporary tattoo, Dick was totally incorporating some of himself into the design.

Thirty-two and a half minutes later, Wally bust through the doors of Gotham Public library, doing his best to keep it human speed as he wandered the halls, hissing “Diiiiiick, Diiick.”

He found him at a table pen in hand, sketching some loose bolts and some birds. “Nice, dude.”

Wally grinned. “We should pull up your laptop, though, see what the pros do? I think tattoo designs are called ‘flashes.’ So like … I dunno, look up ‘lightning’, ‘bird,’ ‘flash’?”

Dick wrinkled his nose at his boyfriend, confused. “Wait, you want a bird?” He’d been… sort of joking.

Shrugging, he leaned down to tug his laptop back out of his bag. He didn’t know why Wally didn’t figure out how to work his Linux already; it’s not like he couldn’t if he tried.

“‘Lightning’… no, not nature. Lightning symbol. And ‘bird’, I guess. And ‘flash’.” Leaning back, he hit ‘enter’.

"No dude, I think you left out space between the ‘bird’ and the ‘flash’ …" Wally leaned over Dick to correct the mistake, but he’d already pressed _ENTER_.

> "… uh," Wally said, mouth slack.

Dick stared. “………………………………. Is that… us?” He  frowned. “Is that me without my mask?”

"I ‘ _boat_ ’ Birdflash? _What does that even mean_?” Wally’s face was getting redder by the minute as he scrolled through the results. “This is, uhm … I mean I knew we had fans and stuff” - he still wasn’t over the fact that Dick had more plushies than he did, and he suspected that Bat-brat was just getting Wayne Industries to pump them out to spite him - “… but …”

The shirt on the picture said ‘BirdFlash’. Robin clicked right in front of the word on the search bar and deleted ‘lightning’, not hitting space. 

> “It says NSFW. Not Safe For Work. Is that… Artemis?”

This actually explained a lot, given how excited Stumblr had been when “Kidslipstream” and “Ninjawing” had started flirting online. Wally cleared his throat. Dick was without a lot more articles of clothing besides his mask, but--

"Maybe the eye color’s a lucky guess? Blue is pretty …" He cleared his throat. ”… sexy.”

And clearly sex was on these people’s minds. 

Dick paused, turning towards Wally. “You think my eyes are sexy?”

 _Duh._ Wally’s first instinct was to lean in and stage-whisper obnoxious compliments until the librarian asked him to shut up or he got hit, but he paused, blinking; his gaze flitted over the library. The redhead was suddenly acutely aware that he was standing in front of several dozen people with his boyfriend, emphasis on the _boy_ , looking at a computer monitor covered in pictures of him and said boyfriend - _celebrity boyfriend_ \- doing things that he sure as hell couldn’t tell his mom about.

His blood couldn’t decide if it wanted to rush to or from his face.

He might actually get Dick in _trouble_ acting like that in public in Gotham. Dick probably didn’t want to be outed in the paper. _Would he even like it?_ He didn’t exactly have a Don Draper template to lean on here. In a rather sad effort to curb his enthusiasm, ultimately, all that emerged was a sort of awkward affirmative whine while he nodded, eyes glued to the screen, clicking windows closed and blushing. 

_Smooth, West._

Dick was doing things to him he still didn’t know how to handle.

Lips quirking fondly, Dick repeated the term over in his head a couple times— _Birdflash_ —as Wally removed it from what he assumed was public sight, because frankly he didn’t seem to mind the images all that much before he realized where he was.

And he was blushing.

Sometimes Dick had to struggle to not coo at his redhead, because Wally would probably not agree with him about his cuteness levels. Robin balanced his elbow on the table, leaning his head on a loose fist, and directed his smile towards his boyfriend.

“I think your eyes are hot, too.”

“Dude,” Wally hissed, face full on red now, but he couldn’t help a twitch of a smile at the corner of his lips. He glanced sideways at the bright blue eyes making stars at him, and if he were anywhere else he’d really enjoy the warm flush in his chest that his ridiculous - _and ridiculously cute right now_ \- boyfriend gave him. Even though he was clearly playing him.

_Little frikkin troll._

He cleared his throat, though and corrected Dick’s typo: _lightning bird **[SPACE]** flash_. Nothing weird came up on the screen.

"But seriously, we should design this thing and get out of here," he said as he pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket, grabbed the chair from the next terminal and plopped down next to Dick. "Did you find a place we can go and get it done?"

“Aw, I liked the other page better,” Dick bemoaned, eyes dancing, still focused on Wally and his pretty blush that made the freckles almost fade away. Robin hastily turned back to the screen before he could start swooning or some nonsense like that. “They had some… doable ideas.”

His knee knocked against Wally’s, and his foot, miraculously freed of one loosely-tied sneaker, decided to creep up the side of Wally’s ankle.

“Maybe we should look it up again later.” His sock caught on the edge of Wally’s Vans, and Dick tried to turn his attempts at escape into a toe massage, finally pressing past the hem of his boyfriend’s jeans in victory. It was times like this that he appreciated the lack of skinnies in Wally’s wardrobe, even though that runner’s ass looked fantastic in them.

Feigning nonchalance, Robin scrolled past a couple designs. “What do you think of Miami?”

"Miam- _i_?” Wally started, but it rose into a squeak at the tickle on his ankle. He froze, nervously crossing his feet to try to dodge Dick’s toes, but, obviously, the acrobat followed without a problem. “Isn’t that a little f-far?”

Shifting diagonally - _head toward Dick, feet in the decidedly opposite direction_ \- Wally started to hiss “ _dude_ " in warning, but it bled into "Dick" as the brunette relentlessly made his way up his calf -

"…… Duuuuckk," it came out. Dick’s cackle didn’t help. Wally hunched over a little to hide his tightening pants and his still red-hot face. “So what do you think of …” - _another tickle back down and up his shin_ -“… flames around the lighn-“

 _Dammit_ , he swore under his breath as he glanced around the room, and while no one was looking too closely, he speedily reached over and pinched the inside of Dick’s upper thigh. “ _Don’tmakememakeyouregretthis_ ," he whispered on the way back, still trying to keep his eyes on the screen. "We have to get out of here before I change my mind," he chuckled.

“Ow!” Dick squawked indignantly, like he didn’t deal with worse on a nightly basis, and wrinkled his nose at Wally, lower lip jutting out in an exaggerated pout. But he did remove his foot, sliding it back into his shoe with little difficulty. He didn’t want to make Wally uncomfortable. Or at least any more than he already seemed to be.

Turning back to the screen, Robin scrolled through a few more posts, primly settling back into his seat and pulling the smirk back to his face. The results were mostly uninteresting at this point, odd sketches or doodles that even he could draw better than.

“So how would you make me regret it?” he asked absently, more out of curiosity than anything else, before pausing at a little… symbol.

"I dunno," Wally mused as he poked around on his own computer the search results for bird, lighting, and flash. “You know, write you up for zeta abuse. You know the League would believe ME over you -

“Hey.” It was pretty cute. Simple, but stylistic enough. Maybe not the best as a tramp stamp, but no one said that’s what it had to be. “What about something like this?”

> "--huh,” he peeked over Rob’s shoulder. “Nah, that could be maybe  _actually_ classy, know what I mean? Classy is the _opposite_ of what we want here. So okay. Hear me out--“

“Yeah,” Dick smirked. “You want trampy.” He steepled his fingers together to avoid reaching for Wally’s free hand, watching the screen with vague interest… until his boyfriend found something he seemed to like.

Wally dragged a couple of the pictures from the browser in an MS Paint program. ”--like, alright, take this, and split it, and then this and duplicate it and … voila.” He pushed back from the screen on the rolly chair with a giant shit eating grin on his face. “AMIRIGHT?”

 

> Two somethings, apparently.

“Robins farting flaming lightning bolts,” Robin couldn’t have kept the approval out of his voice if he’d tried, but Dick deliberately flattened his gaze when he turned it towards Wally. “Dude. You know how much that thing’s gonna hurt, right?”

A lot. And Dick really didn’t like thinking about that. They got injured enough on a regular basis without subjecting themselves to pain off-duty, for something that would hurt like hell and last maybe a week.

“You’ll have to take time off patrol for at least a day, and it’ll sting for ages. You sure you wanna go through all that pain for this thing?”

Wally’s brow knitted - _dammit Dick had a good point_ \- but he shook his head, “If we haven’t been training for this, what have we been training for, right? I blew myself up for fun,” he waved his hands at Dick, “I can handlllleeeeeeeee iiiiit.”

He was already printing out a copy of the tattoo for reference. “How often do I get to do something this funny? Never.”

Dick knit his brows. _You blew yourself up because it was your dream to be like the Flash. Must you compare the two?_

To be fair, though, Wally could handle it. 

But he kept his thoughts to himself as Wally whirled around.

And Robin did like the design.

 It was robins farting flaming lightning bolts _how could he not like the design_? 

“Fine,” Dick nudged Wally towards the exit. “We’ll see what you think when the needle actually hits you. For now,” he grinned. “Guess we’re going to Miami.”

"Do we need anything else?" Wally asked brightly, folding the paper and sticking it in his back pocket. He stood over his boyfriend and held his hand out to pull him up out of his chair. "Let’s go abuse some zeta beams."

Dick looked at Wally’s hand quizzically for a moment before taking it, letting the redhead pull him up and tucking the laptop back in his bag. 

Wally jogged toward the exit; he was so excited right now and needed to seriously get going before he changed his mind. _Because honestly? This was amazing_. As great as Artemis was, she would have never let him do anything like this, much less actually have found it as funny as he did - which, let’s be real, Dick obviously did.

… _the perks of dating your best friend_.

It was awesome.

Wally laughed and walked back a couple of steps. His hand was still warm from when he'd pulled Dick out of the chair, and as they approached the door, he subtly eyed Dick’s hand again. But he spun back around, resisting the strong urge to take it:  _Later, out of Gotham_.

A tiny smile played at his lips as he shouted jokingly over his shoulder, “Can you get any slower, Dick? Let’s do this this year!”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Dick released a short cackle, jogging a little to catch up. He hadn’t seen Wally this excited in a long time. It was probably a bit of a bummer than he couldn’t get a tattoo even if he wanted to—secret identities aside, Wally’s own body would reject and erase it entirely—but hey, at least he’d have the experience now. Which was more than Dick was ever going to get.

(He didn’t _want_ a tattoo, but at least he had the _option_ , unlike Wally.)

“Hey, not everyone can be the Fastest Kid Alive,” he rolled his eyes as they stepped onto the Gotham streets, Dick steering them in the direction of the nearest zeta tube. Wally still got lost in Gotham, and Dick didn’t trust him to not accidentally lead them into a blind alley swarming with muggers who’d know Dick Grayson any odd time of day.

“A tramp stamp, you said.”

Robin’s lips tilted up in a smirk as moved close enough to his boyfriend that their sides brushed with each step and he could slide his hand under Wally’s casual navy blazer, smoothing up a perfect butt that Dick didn’t squeeze—very hard—hooking his thumb into the lining of his jeans, and flattening his palm out just above the swell of his cheeks.

His head tilted to the side, ever-so-innocently curious.

“Right there?”

"Well," Wally shivered under Dick’s wandering hand, and his grin wouldn’t stop as he automatically started to loop his arm over Dick’s shoulder to keep him closer - until he spotted a tourist couple quietly snapping a picture of the imposing Gotham Library architecture a few feet away.

They could get caught - _Gotham paparazzi were notoriously skilled and sneaky_ \- and not even know it. At least out in the open they wouldn’t be stuck like they would have been in the library … and no one would notice his unintended boner walking down the street … _probably_ … but … he sent Dick a confused look.

_Was this really okay?_

Maybe Dick thought they could be subtle enough that it wouldn’t matter even if they were spotted, but subtlety wasn’t exactly Wally’s forte, and … he just didn’t want to be responsible for scandal. They were just getting started to make it work, and there was no way he was going to risk that with unnecessary complications. It just wasn’t worth it. How was it that he was trying to be responsible for once?

So instead, he nodded and leaned away, running a thumb down Dick’s lower arm to gently push it down to his side. He let his touch linger a little, knuckles brushing against Dick’s in a subtle apology, but maybe not long enough.

_Later, in Miami._

"Yeah, something like that! We’ll see what they say," he wandered around Dick again, facing him and walking backwards, and changed the subject: "So want to grab a bite to eat down there before we do the thing? Whatcha in the mood for?"

Wally pushed him aside and moved out of his reach, changing the topic like he thought he wouldn’t notice.

_Did I do something… wrong?_ Robin cast a glance around to see if anyone was watching, but it was _Gotham_. Everyone was too busy, rushing past with eyes straight ahead, either on their phone or pager, the tourists’ eyes on the tall skyscrapers and giant fountain instead of the ground. No one paid the two boys any attention other than to spare them a fleeting glare for walking too slowly.

In the library, there was a larger chance of someone stopping long enough to recognize Dick, or accidentally seeing them playing footsie under the narrow table.

Out here, their only problem was paparazzi, and they rarely followed Richard like they did Bruce. Especially when he was no longer dating the Commissioner’s daughter and had been single for a while. Richard Grayson-Wayne wasn’t all that interesting besides being smart and pretty, they’d discovered soon enough, living up to his adoptive father’s title of Gotham’s Golden Boy in a far more respectable manner. The only way they’d be caught on camera was if a photographer just _happened_ to be passing by.

Not to say the risk wasn’t there, but it was small enough that it wasn’t a concern.

But Wally was definitely uncomfortable.

Was he not okay with being out in public with a guy?

Or was it because of… Dick?

Either way, Robin wasn’t going to make Wally any more uncomfortable than he already was, so he dug his hands into his pockets and grinned back.

“Dessert.” It wasn’t even an innuendo. “We should catch one of the food trucks and get crepes or something.”

Wally bent toward Dick as he continued to wander backwards, head dipped just below the other’s, and looked up at him through short, thick red eyelashes. "Sounds delish," he said.

"Oh, isn’t that it?" he gestured to a side alley a quarter of a block away.

Dick nodded and stopped to program the “out of order” phone booth for “Washington Ave., Miami Florida,” and stepped inside while Wally followed on his trail.

They emerged from an allyway between adobe covered apartments painted teal and beige and light pink; palm trees dotted the streets.

It was like walking into a warm, wet blanket, and even though Wally’s jeans and a blazer with button down was light, it was gonna be too hot here, soon. He shucked off his jacket and tucked it over his messenger bag, and - relieved they were finally away from prying eyes - started to reach for Dick’s hand, which was still buried in his pockets.

"So, where to, oh great leader?" he quipped.

Everything was so… _bright_.

Gotham was never this bright, not even on the sunniest day when yellow was reflecting off every glass office in the city. For once, there was an actual use for his shades.

Taking one hand out of his pocket, Dick awkwardly reached for the side pocket of the backpack slung over his shoulders, pulling out his phone with the other. With a few quick taps, his GPS was looking up a _Love Hate Tattoo Studio_.

“That way,” Dick pushed the sunglasses onto his eyes and nodded to their left. It was a five-minute walk—they were lucky that the zeta tube had dropped them off at the right end of the avenue—a little further from the beach than he’d expected, but not so much that they couldn’t go down there immediately after. “We can get food when you’re done.”

Wally was about to protest, Dick could feel it, and he raised an eyebrow at the redhead.

“I know they do walk-ins—I checked—but that doesn’t mean that we might not have to wait in line for an artist. We don’t even know how long it’ll take.” The span of the design and placement said something between two to three hours, but Dick didn’t know and neither did Wally. “Place closes at eleven. Let’s at least go scope the place out.”

He turned the phone away from Wally, shooting off a set of texts to Artemis and one to Tim as he started walking.

“C’mon. Sooner we get this done, sooner you can get food.”

Wally’s hand dangled awkwardly behind Dick for a second before he strode off without noticing, both hands busy texting. He frowned a little, jogging to catch up, and thinking about nudging him, but Dick seemed distracted so he just strode along silently beside him to the small shop in Miami. 

It was about an hour before sundown; hopefully they’d be able to get out of there and catch the last of it over dinner or something. On the beach. Wally _loved_ the beach. Central was great, but landlocked was landlocked, and there wasn’t much better than wet sand between his toes and the sea breeze and the sound of the surf. Especially the sound of the surf.

But that would have to wait. They crossed a median filled with palm trees and stopped in front of a tiny shop with the words Love and Hate Tattoo Parlor stenciled onto the glass door. At the tinkle of the bell, a creatively decorated employee tossed pink bangs out of his eyes.

"How can I help you?" Rings ran down his thin digits as he fiddled with half-a-dozen piercings in his ear; dragons and skeletons wound up his arms and disappeared beneath the black band t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off that he wore.  _Cool_. Wally didn’t want to do anything permanent to his body, even if he had the option, but it still looked great when done well. The walls around the shop were just as interesting, covered in tattoo flashes and graffiti-esque murals. 

He shuffled the little piece of paper of the birds and lightning bolts out of his back pocket, and Dick plucked it out of his hand.

“Hi,” Dick said brightly, pushing forward before Wally could say a word. He spread the piece of paper out on the counter. “My boyfriend’s looking to get this done on his lower back?”

The dude blinked down at the hastily put together design with a smile of approval, and then at Wally with look of mild concern. To be fair, Wally didn’t really look like the kind of guy who’d want lightning-farting birds permanently plastered over his skin.

“Hey, name’s Kev,” Kev held out a hand for both of them to shake. “That’s definitely something we can do. You guys looking to get this done now or like, come back later?”

“Now’s good,” Dick glanced at Wally for affirmation. “If you guys have slots open or something. How long’s it gonna take?”

Kev was already adding them to the computer, asking for Wally’s name and ID, because “sorry guys, you just look a bit young,” which, well, Dick wasn’t exactly legal in Florida yet. The tattoo was going to take about three hours, just like Robin had predicted, and _Frederico_ was the man for this job.

“He’s actually done for the day, but he’ll take you if you go in right now, and I mean _right now_ ,” Kev told Wally after a hasty phone call. “We just gotta discuss pay—”

“Sounds great,” Dick cut in. This rather significantly large expenditure was on him, but there was no way the redhead would let him pay the entire fee if he didn’t press for it. “We should really catch Frederico. Let’s get you set up,” he grinned at the speedster. “I’ll be right in after filling out the paperwork.”

Because apparently there were _forms_ they had to sign.

A girl popped up behind them, rushing Wally inside, and Dick turned back to Kev to talk about payment. It really wasn’t a big deal for him—he _loved_ spending money on Wally and his boyfriend _knew_ that, but he didn’t let Dick do it very often anyway.

It _was_ pretty expensive, but Wally would be walking around with a pair of robins on his back for a week.

Robin was totally cool with that.

Wally wandered into the back room, where a man, mid-thirties with dark hair and glasses, sat over a table of tools and inks. He smiled at Wally as he came in and gestured for him to sit in a sort-of backwards chair. Wally awkwardly slouched into the seat, ass half-hanging off it.

"Name’s Frederico," he smiled lightly. "Go ahead and pull off your shirt," he said as he plucked the rumpled up piece of paper with the birds and lightning from Wally’s hand.

"I’m Wally," he replied over his shoulder, tossing his t-shirt and jacket over a nearby chair.

Federico shook the paper open and cocked his head, and Wally grinned to himself, waiting for the - "Uh … you … sure about this?" - and there it was.

He nodded. “Yeaaaap.”

The older man shot him a look. “You know this is permanent, right?”

Wally just shrugged, a devil-may-care smile plastered across his face. To be fair, he’d never be this cocky if that were actually true.

"Well, alright,"  Federico said as he started to gather the inks he needed on a little plate beside the chair. "You lose a bet or something, kid?"

"Naw," Wally hissed as a cold alcohol soaked swab flashed across his lower back. “Nothing like that. It’s uh … kind of an inside joke, though.”

"I hope you find it funny when you’re eighty," he said congenially as he pulled up a chair behind the redhead. "So how inside is this in-joke? You here with anyone else?"

"Yeah, I’m here with my -" Wally heard a shuffle at the entrance as Dick put down his stuff. "-my boyfriend."

“Hi,” Dick chirped, eyes lingering a moment too long on Wally’s exposed back, sinewy muscles flexing as he straightened to look at Robin, and very carefully did not smile goofily at the ‘boyfriend’ that he caught while walking through the door. “Name’s Dick.” He shook Frederico’s hand and glanced at Wally. “Getting started, I see.”

Maybe he should call himself ‘Captain Obvious’ instead of ‘Nightwing’, if he ever did step away from Robin.

Pulling up another free chair, Dick plopped down next to the artist, leaving him plenty of room to work but angled so he could see the tattoo being traced out on a stencil.

Wally felt chill despite the Florida heat as the alcohol Frederico swabbed across his skin to disinfect it evaporated. He looped his arms over the back of the chair and rested his chin on his wrists under Dick’s kiss. Dick was a welcome distraction though, and he was really glad he was there to fill in the conversation and keep him company. He wasn’t so worried about the pain (we’ll see about that) as he was getting of bored.

“No, you go there,” Frederico directed Dick forward, in front of Wally. Robin frowned, opening his mouth to protest. _But I wanna watch_. “Your job is to distract him.”

_Oh_.

Right. This was going to be a _painful_ little inside joke.

He scooted his chair ahead, making himself comfortable where he could actually hold Wally’s hand if the redhead wanted him to. Probably not, but still.

Frederico pulled down Wally’s jeans and plastered the thin paper etched with the design onto his lower back. When he peeled it off, it came away blank. Dick’s hands automatically reached for Wally’s face as he moved to give him an ‘it’s okay’ kiss. It landed on his forehead instead. No need to make Wally uncomfortable now.

“You in on this in-joke, Dick?” Frederico quizzed, filling in the needles.

Robin wasn’t a huge fan of needles in the first place. _This was really going to hurt, wasn’t it?_

“Sort of.” Leaning back, Dick exchanged a mischievous grin with Wally. “Let’s just say that Wally here? Runs pretty fast.”

“Track team, eh?” Frederico made the incorrect assumption and Dick let him, because it was certainly better than him making the correct one. Wally shifted in discomfort as the artist touched the needle to his back, muttering a, “Here we go,” as warning.

Dick’s job was to distract him.

And oh boy, it was gonna be an interesting conversation as Frederico gave them a friendly small-talk-third-degree to pass the time. Wally shrugged conspiratorially at Dick as Frederico made all the reasonably wrong assumptions and grinned.

“Hey, Walls. What do you think Artie’s gonna say when she sees?”

"Artie? Oh man, she’ll think I’ve gone crazy," he laughed. "She’d have flipped if we were still dating." he glanced over his shoulder at Frederico, "my ex," he supplied by way of obvious clarification. "She’ll probably think it’s pretty funny, now, I guess. I mean, that’s the idea; it’s a joke."

He was sort of hoping everyone would find it funny.

"Ex, huh? But it sounds like you two are on okay terms?"

"Pfft, yeah," Wally said, with a wave of his hand. "It’s been a while. Water under the bridge and stuff."

"Uh huh," Frederico agreed absentmindedly as he focused on the placing the needles just right against Wally’s back. He heard a soft buzz as the tool started up, and hissed and squinted at the initial sting. It wasn’t too bad so far.

And he didn’t have too much time to concentrate on it as Frederico immediately launched into a much more complicated question: “So then how did you two meet?”

Oh, that was always fun to answer.

Granted, it had been easier with Barbara, but Zatanna had posed the same problem, eons ago. A quick glance at Wally revealed that this one was on him, so Dick shrugged, making a few quick connections and drawing on a past excuse.

“My dad—” It was always easy to call him that, and it always left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth because Bruce had explicitly forbidden it. “—and his uncle work together sometimes.” He left out exactly what it was that they did, because a business tycoon in Gotham had little reason to ‘work’ with a forensic scientist in Central. “They brought us along one day. What was it—” Dick looked at Wally for confirmation, even though he didn’t need to. “Six years ago?”

Six years and a few months. It was a long friendship.

“We’ve been best friends ever since,” he laughed, leaning back in his chair to cast a fond glance at Wally. “Couldn’t pry us apart with a crowbar.”

Crowbar.

Ugh.

Wrong tool to pick.

Wally was definitely starting to feel some pain, it was obvious in the scrunch of his eyebrows, but Frederico was paying the story some attention too. Dick almost felt bad that he had to leave out the actual tale. It was a lot more interesting.

“This uh, ‘boyfriends’ thing is still relatively new, but—” Robin shrugged, speaking more to Wally now. “Pretty sure it’s been there our whole lives.”

He wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

“We just never noticed before.”

_Definitely_. Wally nodded and grinned conspiratorially. “Work.”

"Aww," Frederico chimed in, easing off a little as he leaned around to check on Wally and ask more: "Best friends to boyfriends is always nice, eh? So how did you "notice"? Did the dads mind?"

_Uhm_. Wally took the second question first, glancing at Dick with a little bit of a panicked look: “They … don’t know yet, actually -” he paused, trying to come up with a reason that they wouldn’t have told them -

"Oh? So they would mind?" Frederico frowned in sympathy.

Wally shook his head vehemently. “What? _Nono_. No. They’re … away on, uh, a business trip?” 

He was a crappy liar, and it was good that that was mostly true. The pain didn’t help … _Okay subject change_.

"And the noticing thing - " Okay this was worse, but he’d already started - "It was kind of … an - an accident. We uhm, kissed -"

"You kissed accidentally?" Frederico’s eyebrow shot up, clearly amused.

"Well, uh -" Wally got a little red and very flustered, almost launching into the truth. "We were uhm, under the influence of -"

"Tut, tut, you two look a little young to be drinking," Frederico scolded jokingly. "No wonder your dads wouldn’t approve."

"Well no - I -" Wally trailed off, letting Frederico make the wrong assumption again and resisting the urge to laugh. It’s not like he wouldn’t drink. But he couldn’t even get drunk if he wanted to.

"Uhm," Wally squirmed, and Frederico made a sound to remind him that, yes, he was in the middle of getting a tattoo, "And then we kinda freaked, you know?"

"Right?" he looked desperately at Dick with giant puppy dog eyes for some help.

“Yeah, we freaked,” Dick assured easily, and wasted no time in throwing Wally under the bus. “He freaked more. Never seen him run that fast.”

It was almost true. Certainly felt that way.

“Granted, I was the one who started it and had no idea what the hell I was doing.” _And let him run_. “And then we both got scared, you know? This whole ‘love’ thing’s kinda intimidating.”

Frederico snickered; Dick relaxed further into the tale. This was actually entertaining enough even without adding magic and superpowers to the mix.

“So we ended up not talking for nearly a year until I managed to get myself kidnapped and nearly killed.” Dangerous move, Dick knew, revealing this much, even if it was putting two different events together. Wally was the one who’d gotten hero-napped, and the events following it could _almost_ be called a near-death experience. They’d thought they’d never see each other again.

Risky half-truths.

The tattoo parlor kept records of its customers, however, and Dick had used their real names here. If Frederico went looking them up, he’d find Richard Grayson-Wayne pretty fast, along with not one, but three kidnappings involving him in the last year alone. They were all before May—Richard had been forced into vigilance with no Batman to rescue him—but he hadn’t really set up a time frame for this relationship. Frederico was an artist, not a detective. He’d draw reasonable conclusions and not attempt to look beyond them.

“Let’s just say that after that, both of us managed to get our priorities straightened out. We confessed, I asked him out, he said yes.” He couldn’t help the smile lighting up his eyes. “Then five months, and here we are.”

“Whoa, kid,” Frederico had paused in slack-jawed surprise, clearly not having expected the story to take such a… dramatic turn. It was quite amusing. “What happened? You alright?”

“Yeah,” Dick shook his head dismissively, then realized that it was probably a bigger deal to someone who _didn’t_ get kidnapped on a monthly basis. And he did almost _die_. “I mean, there are some bad people out there, I’m not actually dead, and…” His arguments probably couldn’t get any feebler, so Dick scrambled to turn the attention back to the romance. “I got something pretty amazing out of it.”

There was no judgment in Frederico’s concern, no calculations and no hostility. He was curious for the sake of being curious. He didn’t even know who Dick was, let alone who Wally was. There was something… nice. About being able to tell their story to a complete stranger. Despite the less-than-truthful aspect of it.

“Sure, it would probably have been better if we weren’t quite so idiotic and didn’t waste a whole year, but I, for one…”

All those months of separation sucked.

But they also gave him time to sort out his feelings and… figure _himself_ out.

“…wouldn’t change a thing.”

"Good thing, too," Wally batted his eyelashes exaggeratedly and reached out, giggling sarcastically, "because now he’s here to hold my little ol’ hand."

Wally nabbed Dick’s hand, and he was planning to drop it almost immediately, but Frederico made a particularly painful nip right by his spine, and he winced and squeezed it tight instead. Wally shut his eyes against the burn that had started out light but was growing increasingly painful, and so he laced his fingers in between Dick’s, letting their hands swing suspended in the air between them.

Dick and Frederico were picking up small talk - _had they been to Miami before? Which beaches they should see?_  - but Wally let himself space out as he felt his back swell. He may have been bleeding just a little - not surprising, since he was being poked by needles over and over, but it was also already starting to scab, which he was pretty sure shouldn’t happen … not within - _how much time had passed? An hour? An hour and a half?_ This was taking longer than he thought, and the healing effects of his powers may actually be obvious.

The thought turned his stomach, and he braced him self to be laughing it off: “Haha just a fast healer!” _Yeah, ten times faster_. Maybe his skin would swallow the ink _before he was even done_.

He should have done more research into how long it takes to get through the healing.

The thoughts fell away as he payed closer attention to Frederico and Dick. The tattoo artist hadn’t changed pace or demeanor; things were probably relatively normal so far.

But there was a problem, because they were _talking about restaurants_. Wally had eaten his power bar on the way to Gotham and that was hours ago. His stomach rumbled loudly, and he glanced at Dick sheepishly.

"What time is it?" he asked, noticing his hand was cramping a little from the odd angle, and letting it drop. He hoped he wasn’t missing the sunset. He’d wanted to walk down the beach in the surf with Dick as it went down.

Dick tactfully didn’t comment on the fact that Wally’s grip was starting to crush his fingers, squeezing back gently instead and keeping up the conversation, pulling Wally into it a few times, but for the most part his boyfriend seemed to be distracted— _worrying_ —as the artist commented on the bleeding having stopped. Robin couldn’t see what was going on, but he assumed that Wally’s accelerated healing was somewhat of a surprise to someone who’d spent enough time in this profession to know when something was unusual.

He gave his best friend’s hand another firm squeeze— _it’s okay_ —and eventually Wally let go just as his stomach rumbled.

Dick made a face at him. “Of course food is still more important to you than me.” Checking his phone, he stood, wandering back to where Frederico was working to look at the progress. “It’s eight. The sun should be going down about…”

_Wow_.

“Now…”

The lining was complete, and the artist had started filling in the colors, starting with the robins facing each other at the base of Wally’s spine. The piece was supposed to be amusing, not pretty, and Dick wasn’t sure what it was—the fact that the colors were covering up two of the sparse freckles peppering Wally’s skin or that Frederico had managed to make a sporadic amateur design look crisp and detailed—but it looked really, really good.

And like it hurt.

If he were to go by the angry red splotching over his boyfriend’s back, looked like it hurt a _lot_.

“I could get you something from the food trucks,” he suggested, if only out of sympathy, because Wally would be stuck here for a while yet. Frederico gave him a nod of assent, but declined politely when Dick extended the offer to him as well. Understandable. He couldn’t eat while he was working anyway, so Dick didn’t push it. “Anything in particular you want, Walls?”

Wally shrugged and shook off a grimace as he shifted to glance at Dick.

"I dunno," he said over his shoulder, "something Cuban?"

Dick nodded and headed out the door.

It was starting to itch now, all over his back, not just around the area of his tattoo, but neither Dick nor Frederico seemed concerned, so he pushed it aside. Nothing he could do about it now. If he stopped it would just give it more time to heal suspiciously quickly. Honestly, it was probably a good thing he hadn’t eaten all day.

_… wow, icing on the cake that I’m missing the sunset._

He shut his eyes in irritation, wondering if this was worth it after all. He quietly recited the Krebs cycle under his breath to distract from the burning rising up his spine until the buzz of the needle paused so that Frederico could refill.

"What are you saying there, lightning-bird boy?" he said lightly.

"Oh, uh, it’s the Krebs cycle. For chem class. Final on Friday."

"Chemistry, huh? Where did you say you were going again?"

"I’m a freshman at Stanford."

"Oh yeah? Hot stuff." Frederico grinned. "Your boyfriend going there, too?"

"No," Wally ducked his head. "In fact, he hasn’t even been there yet."

The artist’s eyebows rose. “Really? You’ve been there what 8, 9 months now?”

He shrugged in response, “We weren’t really talking when I moved in, so …” The muscles in his back twitched involuntarily as the buzz of the needle picked up again. “We’ve got busy lives,” he shrugged. “We haven’t even been on a date yet. Not a real one.”

Frederico smiled as he leaned forward and pressed into Wally’s back: “Really? What exactly is a date?”

"Well, you know, gone somewhere fancy for dinner, something special, that sort of thing, just the two of us … I mean, I’ve actually got something … " he trailed off, weighing the odds that Dick would come back before he could finish telling Frederico his plans, but screw it. He’d been dying to tell someone. Keeping secrets was hard work for him.

"After graduation -  not mine, just school’s - I’m planning on taking him on a kinda tour of the Bay Area - you know, San Francisco and stuff. Like, starting up north of the city in the Redwoods, and then maybe fooling around at Pier 49, kind of a tourist trap, but the sea lions are out there now, and then down south for lunch at this really cool little inn-restaurant that has a wolf - at least that’s what my roommate tells me - and to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, that’s the amusement park there, and then this bed and breakfast that’s basically hanging off the side of a cliff in Carmel -"

"Whoa, you know how to treat a dude right. Lucky guy."

Wally sighed. “I hope so …” _He deserves it_.

It didn’t take Dick long to find a nearby Cuban place that had good reviews—according to Yelp, anyway—and had takeout, and Dick strolled into such an authentic Cuban atmosphere that no one even spoke English in it. Dick had to order in Spanish. There were very few things on the menu that could actually be eaten off the table, so he just ended up getting four different kinds of sandwiches for Wally, and an order of ropa vieja for himself. And deviled crab rolls and way too many corn chips and pastelitos and merenguitos than he ever wanted to justify.

He would’ve gotten Wally a bottle of whiskey if he thought it would in any way alleviate the pain, but alcohol barreled through Wally’s system almost as fast as he ran, so Robin opted for plain soda instead, adding it to his already heavy bags. There was enough food in here to easily feed six people, so he supposed it would be enough for a speedster. Somehow he always ended up lugging around food for his best friend.

The sunset was bright over the warm sand as Dick stepped out of the little café-like restaurant. He squinted at the people on the beach and tried not to wish that Wally were here with him, because really, pretty or not, it was just a sunset. He still took the long way back.

The bell at the front door tingled as Dick stepped back through.

Kev, still at reception, grinned at the amount of food, and Dick rolled his eyes exaggeratedly over his shoulder.

"Mmm, speak of the devil," Frederico grinned mischievously at Dick as he made his way to the back room.  Wally’s mouth clamped shut as he stepped into the room, however, and Robin didn’t need to be a detective to raise an eyebrow at Frederico’s smirk and make the deduction that they’d been talking about him.

“Whatever he told you, I’m innocent.”

Frederico’s smirk widened and Wally was _blushing_ now, so Dick just looked even more suspicious until the redhead’s stomach announced that if nothing else, it could smell what was in the bags.

“I should hold the food hostage,” Dick grumbled, hiding a smile at Wally’s comically downtrodden expression. Laying the bag of dessert to the side, he handed his boyfriend a sandwich and took his own seat. “But I’m feeling generous today.” He took a long swig of soda. “So what were you guys talking about?”

"Oh, you know, this and that," Frederico said as he changed the inks in the needle, giving Wally a break to eat his sandwich. "College."

"Mhmm," Wally agreed as he shifted painfully and awkwardly up in the in backwards chair, gleefully accepting what smelled like an amazing pork sandwich. A grinning Frederico interrupted Wally just as he pulled away the wrapper: “So where does this one go? Is it a fancy pants university like you?”

Wally paused and stared at the brunette boyfriend just a few feet away.

He had no idea.

He had **_no idea_** where Dick was going to college.

Or even **_if_ ** he was going to college.

The fall that had been eaten up by, well, trauma had been followed by a period of chaotic separation, and they … hadn’t gotten around to it.

A pit formed in his stomach. _How could he not **know**?_

He was relieved that the chair still faced away from Frederico so that he could hide his slack-jawed, dumbfounded look, which he decided to bury in a bite of sandwich to pretend he hadn’t heard in time. He couldn’t quite make eye-contact with Dick as he mumbled a completely unintelligible " _Ahdunno_ " that he hoped Frederico wouldn’t understand into his dinner and trailed off, hoping that Dick would … well, tell him.

Dick’s smile froze in place, years of practice the only thing enabling Richard to snort delicately at Wally’s indecipherable mumble and roll his eyes at Frederico.

“Food trumps conversation,” he offered, careful not to let the hollow feeling in his chest slip into his voice. It wasn’t Wally’s fault he didn’t know. It just… never came up. It wasn’t important anyway.

But clearly Wally felt bad. Not knowing was admittedly a little weird, especially considering how long they’d been officially dating. Wally was probably embarrassed that he couldn’t answer the question. Dick wished he could tell him not to worry about it. That’s what he’s here for.

“I’m going to Gotham U. in the fall. Gotta stick close to home.” And even Richard couldn’t hide the wistful note on that one. Grinning wider to cover it up, he pulled out his carton of ropa vieja, rummaging for a fork in the bag and catching Wally’s eye in the process.

_It’s okay_ , he tried to say silently. _You know now_.

Wally raised his eyebrows as he finished a mouthful of sandwich when Dick announced he was going to Gotham U. He had thought that Dick said something about wanting to get out of Gotham, and there was no way he hadn’t gotten into wherever else he applied - _MIT, Princeton_ \- not with his grades, and more importantly, his dad’s checkbook.

The fact that he was finding this out _here_ ; that a **_stranger_ ** had thought to bring it up before he had in the last few months was still really embarrassing and pretty annoying. It wasn’t helping his mood.

And neither was the pain or his stomach. He’d burned through his second sandwich in almost as many minutes, but he hesitated to each much more, even though Dick had brought plenty.

He could already feel his healing intensify.

“You sure you don’t want some?” Dick asked Frederico aloud.

“Nah, kid. I’m good,” the artist watched with something like awe as the sandwich disappeared down Wally’s throat at breakneck speed, and Dick neatly deposited a second one into his hands. “Does he always eat like that?”

“Always,” Dick replied, laughing. “He runs it all off, though, so it doesn’t really bother him.”

“Ah, teenage metabolism,” Frederico shook his head, wiping down his needles. “Make the most of it, boys. You won’t have it forever.” He eyed Dick’s exposed arms, sleeves rolled up to counter the heat. “You’re in good shape too. You play a sport? Soccer? Baseball?”

Reasonable speculations. Robin was tall, his arms toned, but he didn’t have the bulk of a football star nor the height of a basketball player. Dick could reference the relatively obscure swim team, only Richard Grayson didn’t really do sports, and that would probably be obvious in a Google search, plainer than his success as the captain of the Mathletes.

“Just hit the gym a couple times a week.” Twice a day, everyday, but this wasn’t something that could be verified. Dick popped a bit of his stew into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. “I’m more of a nerd than a jock.”

Frederico nodded, leaning back in his seat and relaxing. Dick was pretty sure that this food break was more of a resting period for him and a reprieve for Wally, and the artist would have suggested it eventually even if Wally hadn’t been hungry. Working for three hours at a stretch must be as tiring as having to endure that pain for so long.

“So what, Wally gonna run down to see you every weekend?”

Oh, if only they could. With their schedules, they were lucky if they got to see each other for a couple hours a week.

Still, the thought made Dick smile around his mouthful. “Something like that.”

_Or I’ll go see him_ , he declined to add, since he didn’t know how Wally felt about that particular prospect.

A couple more bites of his stew later, Wally’s second sandwich was gone, so Robin hooked a few strands of beef onto his fork and scooped up a good bit of rice, holding it out to Wally.

“Try it.”

Luckily, Dick was spoon feeding Wally, so at least it didn’t look like he was starving after two huge sandwiches - more like his boyfriend was just “making” him try stuff.

"Mmm, great," Wally said following the spoonful of stew.

"You bought enough to feed a family," Frederico said as he slid up behind Wally. "Meeting friends after this?"

"Uh … yeah," Wally lied just as Dick piped up, "No."

Frederico raised an eyebrow, and Wally scrambled: “I uh, got a text from … Tim,” he pretended to inform Dick. “He’ll uh, see us on the beach. Also Bart. And Barbara.”

Bases covered for that much food.

"Uh huh." The artist geared up, and Wally couldn’t help but wince at the prick of the needles against his now extremely sensitive skin. It was the weirdest combination of sunburn and pins and needles. Annoying.

He made puppy dog eyes at the food going cold.

"Don’t worry," Frederico said. "This won’t take too much longer. Your food won’t be _that_ cold.”

"So how … how long will this take to heal?" It was a pretty reasonable question, but still Wally had wanted to avoid it, just to keep from drawing attention to whether or not his healing was unusual. But he was dying to know.

"This? Probably three weeks? A month if you don’t take good care of it."

Wally’s healing factor was usually two to three times faster, depending on the injury. The smaller it was - micro-bruising from running at the speed of sound - took seconds to minutes. Breaks and things took two weeks instead of six. This was probably only in the range of two or three days of healing. Hopefully gone in a week.

_Please don’t let it be noticeable_.

"You’re taking it pretty hard, actually," Frederico said. "Usually there’s no oozing and scabbing for a a couple of days."

So much for that.

Of course.

More food equaled faster healing.

Dick did wish sometimes that Wally was better at lying, though, because Dick was the one who’d bought the food, and _he_ hadn’t known there was going to be more people. Thankfully, the guy wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to them.

“His skin’s probably reacting to the ink a bit,” he told Frederico before Wally came up with something that really made the artist suspicious. “Should be okay in a couple days, right? Doesn’t look like an allergic reaction?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Frederico agreed, wiping excess ink off Wally’s back. “Might take a bit longer to heal, but you’ll be fine.”

Which meant that the tattoo would be gone in a week. Pity. It looked pretty cool.

Frederico had meant it when he said he was almost done, and Dick spent the next fifteen minutes polishing off his dinner and not-so-surreptitiously spoon-feeding Wally when the artist paused to refill or change the ink, small talk dissolving in the face of Wally’s pained silence and Dick’s chewing.

Wally was starting to wince every time the needle dug back into his skin, corners of his mouth downturned in a perpetual frown, and Dick wasn’t used to seeing him like this. Not outside the field, not when he was Wallyand not Kid Flash.

Maybe it was stupid to think like this when it had been Wally’s decision in the first place, and god knew he’d been through much worse, but Robin couldn’t shake the feeling that a speedster—that _Wally_ —shouldn’t ever have to be in pain when it was just him and Dick.

Eventually, however, Frederico started on the final robin’s wing, and Dick hopped off his seat to go around Wally and watch, since his boyfriend wasn’t even making eye contact with him anymore, focused on a point on the floor. Dick understood, but it was a bit more interesting over on this end.

His best friend’s entire back—not just the lower half—had turned an angry, flaming red, and if the tattoo was bleeding, it had been wiped down and Dick couldn’t really tell. What he could see was the design, traced and filled and shaded and gently curving down so the robin’s beaks ended just above the swell of Wally’s ass, the lower wings almost framing it.

Frankly, it looked _hot_.

Dick didn’t realize he’d said that out loud until Frederico laughed, and even Wally turned his head to give him an odd look. Flushing a little, Robin studiously ignored them both, watching the needle shade the last of the blue within the lines.

The artist wiped down the skin a final time and leaned back.

“Good job, kid,” he told Wally. “We’re done. There’s a mirror over there; I’ll get you a second one so you can look at it. Take your time to move. No rush.”

Wally’s faced was flushed not only with the weird reaction his healing had to the tattoo, but with Dick’s reaction to it as well; a grin played at the corners of his mouth. Maybe it wouldn’t be such an awful idea after all.

It was awkward and a little painful to maneuver his way to the mirror; Dick gently plucked the hand mirror away from him and angled it over Wally’s back so that he could see.

Even though it was almost too swollen to see, what was visible actually looked kinda badass, if he said so himself …  _annnnnnnnnnnnd_ still pretty ridiculous but that was the point. It would be gone in a week, anyway. It almost made him a little sad, though. It was an awful lot of pain for a week-long joke.

_Still. Better than having it forever._

Frederico finished prepping a large medicinal bandage and gently taped it around the small of his back. “Be sure to wash it at least once a day, and apply some balm to help reduce the swelling, okay?”

_At least once a day?_  Wally was many things, but flexible wasn’t one of them. He barely reach the small of his back; he couldn’t get it all at that angle. Asking his roommates to lotion him up was going to be awkward. Well, this wasn’t the first time he wished he Dick’s monkey limbs.

_Jeeze this was so uncomfortable._ He started to grab his bags, but he couldn’t really bend over, and Dick swooped in to collect the food and even Wally’s messenger bag and jacket. Wally struggled into his shirt and followed Dick into the lobby.

Kev pouted at them from behind the counter: “Aww, it’s too bad I can’t see. You should come back in a few weeks and get a picture when it’s healed!”

Frederico nodded. “If you need any touch ups in the next few weeks or so, feel free to stop by.”

"Y-yeah," Wally replied weakly _. If by a few weeks you mean a couple you mean “a couple of days” and by “touch up” you mean “start from scratch” because it’s been completely absorbed by my body_.

Kev grinned coyly at him: “I wish I had a sugar daddy like this one,” he cooed, nodding at Dick. “I think someone should do _~a little something extra tonight~._ ”

… huh? If the $50 dollars in his pocket wasn’t enough to pay Dick back, Wally wasn’t sure where he’d dig up the money. He’d been saving for the trip around Stanford for weeks.

"How much was it?" he asked, trying to seem casual.

"Oh that little gem ran $350. Plus tip."

Wally couldn’t hide his surprise and spun around to give Dick a really intense Look. _Wow, this was embarrassing_.

"Like I said, that’s a _putting out_ present,” Kev joked.

"… yeah," Wally agreed weakly, starting to regret what was shaping up to be the dumbest idea he’d ever had. "Let’s just go," he said, narrowing his eyes at Dick, trying to fake a positive tone for their sake.

Robin watched Wally from his peripheral vision as they both thanked Frederico, going over every detail of the whole day in his head as they walked out of the tattoo parlor and doing an excellent job of pretending that Dick hadn’t managed to screw up without having any clue of what he’d done wrong.

It wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence.

Wally was walking faster than was strictly necessary, and although Robin’s legs were now long enough for him to easily keep up, Dick hung back a little, adjusting the strap of the messenger bag across his chest, because that had been Wally’s ‘you stupid ass’ look, and when had he been stupid or an ass… today? Granted, Wally had been a little uncharacteristically prudish at the library and on the way here, and maybe he wasn’t as okay with intimate contact in public, but he’d seemed fine once they hit Miami, so…

_“My boyfriend’s looking to get this done on his lower back?”_

_“I wish I had a sugar daddy like this one.”_

Oh.

Dick felt his stomach twist a little, because of course he should have known that Wally wouldn’t like being introduced that way, and then have Dick pay for his tattoo like he was putting out money for a fancy addition to his favorite car. He should have known, especially after the way Wally pulled back in Gotham. The introduction should have been ‘best friend’. He should have mentioned that Wally was going to pay back half the fee later, even though Dick would never have actually let him.

It was  _basic_. Richard  _knew_  how to do this.

Wally wasn’t ready, and Dick needed to stop pushing.

He glanced at his boyfriend— _ **best**  friend; it’s  **best** friend_  _in public_ —noticing the redness of his neck which had nothing to do with embarrassment. The pain probably wasn’t helping Wally’s mood.

With two long strides, Dick caught up to his best friend—the switch wasn’t hard at all; they’d been best friends for  _years_ —shifting both food bags to one hand.

“Hey.” He raised his free fingers to touch the redhead’s arm. “You know you don’t have to pay me back, right? It really is a present. I  _like_  spending money on you.”

It wasn’t like he had anything else to spend it on. Dick _loved_ splurging on his family. And if his gifts were a little expensive, it wasn’t like he didn’t have the money. He didn’t expect or even _want_ anything in return.

“KF?”

"Yeah?" Wally said, a little curtly. He didn’t really mean to sound so short, but his back stung like the worst sunburn he’d ever had, and so did the fact that Dick had dropped _$350 dollars for him_ on a stupid _joke_. A joke that was shaping up to be maybe not worth it for two or three days of hilarious pictures, and everyone’s “omg” faces.

He quickly shed his now itchy, unbearably hot shirt, struggling and getting just a little stuck as he dragged it over his head.

_Fuuuuuu_ , what if it disappeared before it healed, and they didn’t even get that satisfaction? Stupid powers.

As much as he loved getting presents, it grated sometimes to be reminded how easily Dick could get anything he wanted for him, while Wally had spent months saving for the pricey vacation he had planned. There may be a little too much on his credit card, too.

But it would be _worse_ to hear Dick apologize for being super generous because he had wealth he didn’t ask for under horrible circumstances. The price he paid for that was too high.

"Want to go to the beach?"

_O-kay_. Robin took as unconscious step back as Wally wrestled with the shirt stuck over his head, muscles coiling in instinctive anticipation. Wally was definitely _angry_. Not so much that he might lash out, but logic couldn’t overthrow years of fighting in Gotham’s streets and expecting danger from the most unsuspecting targets. Dick bit the inside of his cheek and forced himself to relax despite the petulance rearing its head inside his chest.

“Sure,” he said quietly as Wally balled up his shirt, reaching to take it from him and stuffing it into the messenger bag slung across his chest. Wally hadn’t answered his question, likely hadn’t even paid attention, and usually Dick wouldn’t let that pass, but today, after making approximately five big mistakes in the span of as many hours, he wasn’t about to crack the thin ice he was already skating.

He was tempted to put on his sunglasses again, even though the harsh light was gone.

Robin transferred the bag of food from one hand to the other, taking the lead towards the beach. The sun was already down, but the sky was still light, and while there weren’t as many stars as he was expecting, there were still like a gazillion more than there were in Gotham. On most days, the city smog wiped out even Polaris.

Maybe it was the weekend, or maybe the fact that the sunset was over and a lot of people had gone back to their hotel rooms, but the beach was noticeably empty, just a few vendors at the far edge and nothing but the sound of waves sloshing onto the sand.

His eyes strayed to the angry red of Wally’s back, a small bit of swelling visible around the bandages.

With a soft sigh, Dick flopped down on the sand, untangling himself from the straps of the bags and pulling off his shoes and socks.

“Hey, you want ice cream?” he indicated his head towards the vendors.

Wally began to crouch down beside Dick, but the hot stretch of the skin on his back quickly dissuaded him.

"Yeah," he said, latching onto the ice cream as a reason to immediately get back up. "I’ll go grab some."

At least the $50 in his pockets could be put to some use. “Stay here,” he added, just to make sure Dick wouldn’t try to be even nicer to him because he was in obvious pain. Dick was carrying everything anyway, he deserved a break. Again, if he felt a little better he might have noticed how curt he sounded, but he was in no condition to be self-aware.

His jog turned into a trot turned into a plod across the slippery sands, and time felt eternal as the vendor only about block down the beach away slowly crawled closer. Wally dug the $50 out of his pocket and surveyed the options: _did they have Rocky Road?_

Wally let himself lapse into fifth grade girl mode: if the fact he and Dick had same favorite ice cream _wasn’t_ totally a sign they were destined for everything then he didn’t know what _was_.

But crap. They didn’t.

Exhausted, he just pointed to the first thing on the right.

"Can I have two cones of caramel vanilla?"

The dude better have change for a $50.

Dick had swallowed down the ‘I’ll come with you’, instead raising an eyebrow at the harsh tone and busying himself with the bags of food as Wally moved towards the vendors, stuffing one into a compact enough fold that he could put it inside his backpack if he took out the headphones and slung them around his neck. That done, there was one less bag to carry, so he could eat his ice cream without some incredible acrobatic feat being necessary. He heard Wally coming before the redhead stopped next to him, holding out one cone without even trying to lean down.

Hurting too much to sit, then.

“Hang on a sec.” Robin scrambled to loop his arms through the straps of his backpack and sling the messenger bag across his chest, pausing to detangle the wires of the headphone. Wally bounced impatiently, so Dick rolled his eyes at him.

“We can’t all be speedsters, you know.”

When he finally slid up to his feet, the ice cream had started to melt and Wally was already biting into his cone.

Which was caramel vanilla.

A little baffled, Dick took his own cone and gave it a long look, as though staring at it would magically transform it into strawberry or chocolate, and he couldn’t say he wasn’t hoping that the caramel at least would go away.

He kinda hated caramel vanilla, and Wally sort of knew that?

Dick was a strawberry kind of person. Or chocolate and marshmallows. Vanilla was his least favorite, but the real problem was the caramel. A lifetime of circus caramel apples and Alfred’s homemade wonder-caramel had left Dick unable to stand any processed kind.

…Maybe this had been the only flavor left.

Oh well. It was just ice cream.

Shifting the bag from one set of knuckles to the other to ease the pressure, Dick hesitantly nibbled at the wafer cone, avoiding the caramel as much as possible while licking away the liquid drops that had started to slide down the sides. The cold helped stifle the heat, though, and Dick took another moment to glance up at the stars.

“Hey,” he couldn’t help the smile lighting up his face. There had been stars on their last outing together, too. “I can see Orion’s belt from here.”

Wally snorted into his ice cream, trying to remember the quip that he’d made about that, but it wasn’t coming to him. Dick was sort of half-heartedly eating his ice cream, and for once, Wally actually wasn’t in the mood to finish something so sweet. It made his teeth itch and head hurt.

To be fair, everything made his teeth itch and head hurt right now. The tattoo wasn’t really an injury so much as some kind of super-sized allergic reaction. He’d so been looking forward to kicking off his shoes and socks and soaking Dick in the waves, but now he could only think about the sticky sand he’d be dragging back home between his toes and the the thick weight of water-logged pants cuffs and what if he stepped on a crab in the dark and just what an unbearable hassle it would be.

Dick had that look of patient discomfort that he put on when he was tolerating something and … yeah.

They should probably call this a day.

_"Hey, Dick, you just dropped $350 on me, but I’d kind of like to go home and whine into my pillow for a while because I did something stupid, that cool?"_

"Hey, uh, I think I … I need to lay down or something, man."

_I’ll figure out how to make this up to you later, I really will._

Even the mention of their last ‘date’ failed to rouse a response or even a smile, and really, Dick was ready to call it quits too. Today was just not going to work out.

“Sure,” he said readily, trying to work out how he could just eat the wafer and leave the caramel untouched without the whole thing falling apart. “Dorm, right?”

He would have offered to take Wally to the manor, put him on some speedster-level painkillers and just… make sure he was okay, but something told him that being around him was a stress his best friend didn’t need right now. Dick wasn’t sure exactly _what_ was making Wally uneasy, but maybe some space would help.

Taking the ice cream down in big bites—after the second one he got brain freeze and couldn’t taste anything anymore so it worked out—as they walked back to the zeta, Dick freed one hand to quickly set the location to Wally’s dorm. Then he pulled the messenger bag over his head, holding it and the pack of sandwiches out to the redhead.

“You want me to—” he faltered, because ‘ _walk you there_ ’ was hovering at the tip of his tongue, but the answer was probably ‘ _no_ ’ and he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear that, despite the fact that even if Wally did say ‘yes’, there would be no arms slung around each other and laughter, just stilted awkwardness.

Besides. Wally hadn’t exactly offered to take him yet, and if there was one place where Dick would be wary of imposing, it was his school.

“You gonna be okay from here?”

"Y-yeah," Wally mumbled as he wrestled the padding on the bags over his shoulders and back into a configuration that didn’t sting. To be honest, he really could have used the extra hands lugging this up out of the steam tunnels underneath campus, but he really didn’t want to put Dick out any more than he had. "I’ll be okay."

"Thanks, dude," he said, and he meant it way more than he could express it at the moment. Dick was always there for him, incredibly generous, and of course this was going onto the interminable list of everything he - well, "owed" wasn’t the right word - but everything he was grateful for that Dick was as a person.

Dick seemed a little reserved, and Wally could hardly blame him, but as the beam lit up behind him, he still shifted in, carefully avoiding brushing his sensitive skin against Dick or the bags the wrong way, planted a light, awkward, if-sincerely-intended, kiss on his cheek.

"Call me soon?"

Dick didn’t get a chance to reply before the white light engulfed Wally and he was gone, but he knew there was no one in the vicinity—all the zeta tubes were largely hidden from the public eye—and…

Wally was mad at him.

It wasn’t uncommon for Dick to sulk, but Wally almost never did, at least not when it came to him. Robin left him behind on a mission, Wally called him up to make sure he knew exactly how he felt about it. Dick showed up late to a hangout, Wally ate all his popcorn in revenge.

He didn’t pretend that everything was alright, and he didn’t let Dick pretend either.

“Yeah,” he replied to no one, reprogramming the zeta for the Batcave. His cheek itched and he rubbed at it viciously, but the phantom feeling of Wally’s lips wouldn’t go away.

Dick didn’t want a kiss on the _cheek_. If Wally was mad at him, if Wally didn’t want to— _touch_ him—he’d rather not have a kiss at all.

And he _knew_ he was being stupid. That Wally was just hurting and irritated and he hadn’t felt up to a long romantic goodbye and Dick needed to be more careful around other people, but he had demons in his head that wouldn’t _listen_ to logic.

That took every chance they got to rear their ugly heads, and sometimes he just. Didn’t know how to fight them off.

Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Robin let the zeta beam take him home.


End file.
